


Risk Analysis

by MellytheHun



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Trauma, Coming Out, Destroying Childhood Memories, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Friendship, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, I can't believe that's an actual tag, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Protective Eddie, Scene Rewrite, cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 20:03:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21003389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: Young Richie tilts his head, smirks, and announces, “I knew you’d stay pretty. Are we good, then?”“Uh,” Eddie hesitates, noticing the way Richie’s hold has gone strict, and hard around his arm again, “Good? What do you mean?”“You have a wedding ring on!” young Richie observes cheerfully, pointing at Eddie’s free hand, “So, it becomes legal? People know?”“Know what?” Eddie wonders.“Eddie,” Richie says too softly, “Please. Stop. We need to leave.”“We’re married, aren’t we?”The first shoe is dropped, and Eddie watches in shock as young Richie steps aside, to show the fresh ‘R + E,’ he’s carved into the wood.





	Risk Analysis

**Author's Note:**

> okAY SO LISTEN
> 
> I love Bill, I just wanted what Bill got in It: Chapter 2 for ALL the characters; facing his younger self, and making some sort of peace with his younger self's fears, and defeating the way IT wanted Bill to remember himself. 
> 
> Then I saw a prompt on Tumblr, that was like 'what if whatever was behind the Scary Door changed the entire outcome of the movie' and I saw my opportunity, and I fucken took it. 
> 
> Bill is a super, emotionally independent character, and I think that because of all the hatred Richie internalized, he wouldn't have been able to defeat IT in his memories, alone, the way Bill did. So, this scene happens at the same time that all the Losers are facing their fears and memories in the sewer/cave. 
> 
> TW: SLURS. LOTS OF SLURS. I wrote the scenes as they were portrayed in the movie - the word 'fa***t' is used repeatedly, and even by Richie himself. There's a lot of self-hate talk, implications of depression, or suicidal ideation, mentions of blood, a scene of violence against a child (it's IT presenting itself as a child, but the point stands), and uhhh yeah. I think that's all? If there's anything else I should tag/warn for, let me know in a comment (politely, please). 
> 
> The warning for 'Graphic Depictions of Violence,' is not only for a scene where there's a stabbing, but the emotional violence Richie suffered as a kid, told in flashbacks. Please tread carefully!
> 
> Also, I'm posting this on my wedding anniversary! So, I'm gonna grab my own husband, and go have fun. Enjoy!

“Oh,_ shit_,” Richie curses.

Eddie shakes his head, “no way am I falling for this shit again.”

“Oh yeah, that thing’s a fucking monster,” Richie agrees, snarling down at the Pomeranian, “Hear that? I know your moves, you little _ bitch_.”

“Richie, make it sit.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Richie proclaims, slamming the door shut.

Eddie turns to him in confusion, “what if it was just a dog, though?”

“You’re a fucking risk anaylist, Eddie. Can you do that quick math? What the fucking odds were that that fuzzy motherfucker was gonna transform into some fucking abomination out of the eighth ring of Hell -”

“Okay, okay, okay, I get it,” Eddie interrupts, waving Richie off with his one free hand.

“I did this with Bill once - when we were trying to get back to you, at the Neibolt house,” Richie explains, looking at the Very Scary door, “I don’t think there’s a right answer to this stupid fucking trick.”

“Which ones did you guys try?”

“Everything but the middle one.”

“And both -”

“Were horrendous beyond imagination, yeah.”

“Then we may as well try the middle one, right?”

Caught off-guard by the suggestion, Richie glances at Eddie, and then twitches closer to him, hearing something move from a yard or so away. 

The hand he keeps around Eddie’s forearm tightens minutely, as he shifts enough to look behind them for a beat, then back at the doors.

He’s holding Eddie’s wrist, and they’re both covered in grime, blood, dirt, and God knows what else, but they’re alive. Eddie’s skin is warm under his touch, like it used to be, when they were young, and he could rest his hand on Eddie’s leg in the hammock at the clubhouse. Warm, and smooth, and comforting in that way that Richie only so recently remembered it.

“Fine, fuck it - send it - fine, just - just open it,” Richie manages to say to Eddie, though he’s the one that actually reaches forward, and throws the door open.

The plainly Scary door shows them a sunny, summer day, and, only a little ways away, a boy crouched in front of the wooden rail of the Kissing Bridge.

Rigid, and looking unnecessarily alarmed (as far as Eddie can tell), Richie goes to shut the door, but Eddie stops him, moving forward.

“Richie, this could be the right door -”

“What are you doing? There _ is _ no right door, Eds! What are you fucking doing? The fuck - he’s just gonna twist this up to -”

Not inclined to listen, and more inclined to follow his gut instinct, Eddie steps into the room that turns into the outdoors, and his hair is swept up in a warm breeze, the air fresher than he ever remembers it being, and scented with wild pine. His heart rate slows a touch as he approaches the boy, knowing that head of shaggy hair anywhere, recognizing the narrow slope of those shoulders, and the pale length of skin on those lithe arms - it’s like the very marrow in Eddie’s bones recognizes him..

“Richie?”

A thirteen year old Richie Tozier twists around to see him, shooting up onto his feet, covering his carving with his back, and hands.

“What is this? Who are you? I wasn’t doing anything weird! How long have you been there?”

Just as Eddie goes to answer, though he has no idea what he’s about to say, his own timeline’s Richie grabs his arm, and tells him, “it’s a trap - come on.”

“No - no, Richie - what happened?” Eddie asks him, feeling very little of It’s energy on this particular memory, feeling very certain in his decision to stay put, “This isn’t like the other tricks, or doors. This is… this is a memory of yours. What happened here? What is It showing us?”

“It doesn’t fucking matter! We need to get out!”

“Are you me?”

Richie looks at his younger counterpart, and they both move in sync, inching the bridges of their glasses up their noses in a familiar nervous tic.

Eddie can’t help but smile, glancing between the two.

“Holy shit,” young Richie breathes, “Is this a time-loop, or something? He said it wasn’t like the ‘other tricks,’ - is something bad gonna happen to me?”

“No,” Richie reassures his younger self, though practically bouncing on the heels of his feet, clearly wanting to turn around, “but we shouldn’t be here.”

He looks at Eddie, and professes, “it’s - this is private, Eddie. It’s private. We need to go.”

“Eddie?”

Eddie looks down at this living, breathing memory of his best friend, and smiles meekly.

Richie was so lanky, and so sweet - his memories served him ill, Eddie decides, looking at this recreation. He misremembered how innocent Richie truly was; how young, how full of life

“Yeah,” Eddie tells him, “It’s me.”

Young Richie tilts his head, smirks, and announces, “I knew you’d stay pretty. Are we good, then?"

“Uh,” Eddie hesitates, noticing the way Richie’s hold has gone strict, and hard around his arm again, “Good? What do you mean?”

“You have a wedding ring on!” young Richie observes cheerfully, pointing at Eddie’s free hand, “So, it becomes legal? People know?”

“Know what?” Eddie wonders.

“Eddie,” Richie says too softly, “Please. Stop. We need to leave.”

“We’re married, aren’t we?”

The first shoe is dropped, and Eddie watches in shock as young Richie steps aside, to show the fresh ‘R + E,’ he’s carved into the wood. 

Eddie knows that carving; he’d passed it plenty of times on the bridge, and it had always made his chest feel tight, or sometimes it made him feel as though he’d walked into a room where a joke had just been told at his expense, and the air was charged from it as soon as he walked in, without a clue. On a few memorable occasions, it gave him the strange sensation that he was being watched.

Maybe some part of him always knew he was the ‘E.’

Regardless, young Richie displays his work with pride, smiling broadly at Eddie, “see? I knew it. I knew we’d be forever. Which one of us proposed? It was probably me. It was me, wasn’t it?”

“Richie?” Eddie asks the man beside him, “What’s… what’s going on?”

No answer comes.

Young Richie’s face falls, and a shameful flush colors his pale face, “... is it… we’re husbands someday, aren’t we?”

“No,” Richie tells his younger self, voice hoarse, “No. You don’t love Eddie like that - it’s a phase, it’s -”

“Bullshit!” young Richie shouts, fisting his knife dangerously, owlish eyes getting watery behind their magnifying lenses, “That’s such bullshit! I never liked any girls the way I like him! I’ve only ever wanted Eddie! Only Eddie! It’s not a phase -”

“It is! It’s a - you’re just _ a kid_! You don’t _ know _ what you want -”

“I need him!” young Richie cries out, looking angrily up at his older self, “I don’t _ want _ Eddie! I _ need _ him! I love him!”

“_No_, _ you don’t_!” Richie screams, letting go of Eddie’s arm altogether, getting into his younger self’s space aggressively, and pointing in his face, “Don’t you start that shit! Don’t you start! You fucking shut it, okay? He marries a woman, okay? He moves on, he _ forgets you_, you forget him, and he marries a woman, the way -”

“Fuck you!” young Richie spits out, “Who else would he wanna marry?! I love him the most anyone ever could! The most! Don’t we ever get the balls to fucking say it!?”

“_Then say it_! Fucking _ say it_, you little _ faggot_!” Richie bellows viciously, shaking from head to toe, looking sickly, and ashamed at having cursed at himself, “Say it, and you'll lose everyone! And you know what? He’ll still walk away! He’ll still grow up! He’ll still marry a woman - okay? So fucking put this away! Put it away! Forget about it! This isn’t love - it’s nothing! It’s _ nothing_, you little shit!”

Tears spill from young Richie’s eyes, and he screams back, “I can’t! I can’t just put it away! Aren’t you _ me_? Don’t you remember trying? We tried! But, I want him! He’s the only one I want, and he’s the only one I ever wanna want, anyway! If-if I ever said that shit about Bev, no one would tell me I was too young to know what I wanted! It’s just cause it’s a boy, it’s cause it’s Eddie that you - that everyone - that you all -”

The bridge tilts, the sunlight breaks, the trees bend, morph, colors warp, and it all spins dizzyingly until it _ becomes _ the arcade.

Eddie and Richie seem to watch, unseen, as they observe a young Richie playing Street Fighter with another kid, and ultimately beating him, of course.

“You’re fuckin’ good!”

Young Richie is standing next to this boy Eddie doesn’t recognize, letting his hand linger a little long on a low-five, and then the boy says regretfully, “aw, well - I gotta go.”

“Uh, wait!” young Richie calls, “Uhm - how about we go again?” he asks sweetly, presenting an extra playing token, “Play some more, you know? Only if you want to…”

It’s then that Bowers and his cronies enter the arcade from the other end, and both Richie, and this stranger see Bowers; they both seem frightened at first, though Eddie can’t determine why right away, beyond the fact that Bowers was just generally, objectively terrifying their entire lives.

“Dude, why are you being weird?” the boy asks uncertainly, all prior friendliness evaporated, “I’m not your fucking boyfriend.”

“No, I -” young Richie begins, looking panicked, sounding worse, “I didn’t -”

“The fuck’s going on here?” Bowers asks, stepping closer to the two teenagers.

“You assholes didn’t tell me your town is full’uh little faeries,” the strange kid responds, clearly abandoning Richie against Bowers.

Rage swirling in his belly, heat rising in his chest, Eddie feels his fists curl up by his sides, but he finds he’s too enveloped in what he’s seeing to look at the grown Richie beside him, and check in with him.

He finds he doesn’t need Richie to confirm whether or not this memory is real; he saw the playing token, and he very immediately understands why Richie threw it in the fire.

“Richie fucking Tozier?” Bowers mocks, “What? You tryin’a bone my little cousin?”

Young Richie freezes up, flustered, nervous, and looking positively cornered, Bowers leans into his space, shouting at his face, not unlike how Richie only just screamed at his younger counterpart on the bridge - “_get the fuck outta here_, _ faggot_!”

Perhaps looking for support, Richie turns to see the other patrons staring at him, and then he’s stumbling a step backwards, clearly scared to turn his back on Bowers, scared of everything that’s happening to him right then, and then he hears Bowers scream, “_fuckin’ _ ** _move_**!”

As soon as the memory of Richie is rushing out the door of the arcade, the room turns upside down, dumping them on the lawn near to where the Paul Bunyan statue stands.

Even with his impaired memories, Eddie knows he’s never seen Richie Tozier cry.

It’s perhaps the worst thing he’s ever been made to watch, and that is _really_ saying something.

“R-Richie,” Eddie murmurs to the man beside him, “Go to him.”

“And do what? I can’t change shit.”

“Jesus Christ, Richie,” Eddie sputters on an exhale, still staring at his young friend, sobbing into his hands on the bench, “Look at him! Come on! Go to him! Tell him it’s okay!”

“It’s not, though.”

Eddie turns to look at Richie incredulously, even fight with him about it, insist he go comfort his younger self, but then his head his spinning back to the Paul Bunyan statue that comes alive, and starts hunting Richie down, trying to impale him, asking if he wants a kiss, and _ dear God_, Eddie thinks to himself, _ Richie was so alone in this - he never even told us about this_.

Screaming out for Richie, Eddie chases after the young boy, telling him to run, to get the Hell out, and young Richie hears him, screaming back, “I’m trying!” - then he falls.

“It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real -” young Richie chants to himself, rocking in the grass - and then the park is warping, twisting, turning like a sick carnival ride, and fluorescent lights flicker down on them as Eddie and Richie find their footing, all the walls and floors popping, and snapping into place until it’s clearly the boy’s bathroom, at the middle school.

A fourteen year old Richie is tucked away in a stall, pulling at his fringe, his face tired, and swollen from crying - he looks up at Eddie, then focuses on his counterpart, and tells his older self roughly, “it hurts to hide like this.”

“I know,” Eddie hears Richie reply.

Young Richie glares at the Richie beside Eddie, and tells him, “but we deserve it. I deserve this, don’t I? That’s what my dad would say. Mom always wanted a girl, I guess, but I’m not a girl. I’m a boy. I’m a boy that likes -”

Richie intakes sharply, and his younger self laughs bitterly, “see? You can’t even hear it. It never gets better, then, does it? Phenomenal. Do we ever even get to kiss him? Just once?”

Eddie finally braves looking over to his friend, only to watch him shake his head, but Richie expertly avoids making eye-contact with him, as he answers, “no. We - he’s not for us. He never was. You get over it.”

Young Richie cocks his head to the side, pushes his glasses up again at the same time his counterpart does, and asks, “really?”

“No,” Richie responds sadly, “No, not really.”

“Do we really forget?” - the tears come rushing back to young Richie’s eyes, “We _ forget_?”

“In a way,” Richie tells himself, rubbing at the center of his chest, “We forget Eddie, the person, but we don’t forget how we felt. We don’t… we don’t really ever like anyone like that again. We get vague ideas about what we want in a… in someone we’d date, and seeing Eddie again after so many years, it’s obvious that we used him as a measuring stick for everyone else we ever met, but…”

“No one compares,” young Richie fills in, sounding confident of his answer, “No one ever compares, do they? I mean… how could anyone? I’ve known I wanted Eddie since like, the third grade. I can’t even decide what cereal to eat most mornings, but I saw him, and I knew it. I knew it in my heart, right away, that I’d never, ever love someone like that again, that he was the one I wanted. He’s my only one. I mean… who can compete with that?”

Shoving his hands in his jacket pockets, Richie shrugs, and young Richie pushes his glasses out of the way of his hands, to cup his crying face, and shake.

“Fuck. So, no one ever loves us back? The way we want?”

Richie shakes his head, though his younger self isn’t watching him, and only continues to sob, “he has a date with a girl tonight. I wanted it to be me - I’m so jealous. I’m so angry. All I wanna do is tell him, but I’m so scared. I’m so fucking scared all the Goddamn time. I’m so stupid.”

As memory serves, Eddie acquired very few dates in middle and high school, and he hardly recalls this one that, apparently, his best friend at the time had been completely distraught over - he has a blurry flashback of getting ice cream with a terribly boring girl (Nancy? Her name was Nancy? Or Natalie? It hardly matters.). 

“You’re not stupid.”

Both Richies look at Eddie, and Eddie approaches the open stall door, kneeling to meet eyes with this memory made flesh.

“But you hate me now, don’t you?”

Dropping his head, Eddie sighs, then picks it back up, and looks deeply into young Richie’s eyes, “I am… Richie, I am so, so sorry for whatever it is I ever said, or did, that made you think for even a second that I’d ever hate you.”

“We don’t deserve you, and you could never love us back.”

“I - that’s not entirely -”

“Tell us. Do it,” young Richie hisses, eyes turning a strange, sickly gold, “Tell us you can’t love us. You never could.”

Backing away now, Eddie stands, and looks to his own, grown friend, Richie, and sees him transfixed by his younger self.

“Richie,” Eddie says to him, touching his shoulder, “That’s not you. You were right - it’s another trick. It’s not -”

“The memory is real, though,” Richie replies robotically, still looking into the stall at the gradually deforming version of himself, “These memories are all real. The feelings, too. I remember it all.”

“But you know I could never hate you, Rich - you know, you gotta know,” Eddie insists, trying to get Richie to look at him again.

“Yeah, fine, but you were never gonna love me,” Richie concedes; his young counterpart grins widely, with sharp teeth, “Twenty-seven years, Ben held onto that fucking yearbook signature, and I... “

“You had nothing of Eddie’s,” young Richie mocks, “because it’s just as much of Eddie as you deserve, you sick fuck.”

The floor upends them all, until they’re back on the Kissing Bridge, and young Richie is gripping his knife, coming closer to both the grown men on the ground.

“There were days you wanted to end it all. Just so it wouldn’t hurt anymore. You wouldn’t have to keep so many secrets. You were weak, you were obsessed, and you still are. You’re just boring, and old now. That’s all that changed.”

“Hey, fuck you!” Eddie snarls, feeling grown Richie’s eyes rove to the back of his head, “I get what you’re doing, you fuckin’ monster - Richie has never been boring a second in his life, and he’s the strongest person I know.”

“He’s a sick fuck!” young Richie screams, raising his weapon.

Eliciting a terrible, inhuman screech, Eddie grabs young Richie’s small wrist in his hand, twisting it violently, and breaking it with a nauseating snap; the knife falls to the ground, and Eddie stares down the injured, imitation Richie.

“He is not _ sick_,” Eddie mutters dangerously, trembling with pent up rage, “Neither of us are.”

Young Richie’s face distorts so horribly, his jaw unhinges, revealing several rows of teeth, his eyes sink back, and his head stretches forward, moving to bite Eddie, but right before he can, Eddie feels Richie move beside him.

Having grabbed the knife, without a moment’s hesitation, Richie plunges the knife into the neck of his younger self, effectively rescuing Eddie all over again.

Staggering backwards, young Richie tries shifting back into a more pleasant version of himself, but struggles to transform, grappling near his neck with slippery, bloody fingers, trying to dislodge the knife, choking on blood, spitting like a snake.

“Go,” Richie orders Eddie, a hand on Eddie’s lower back to guide them back to the door from whence they came, “Go, go, go!”

They outrun young Richie, the sunlight, the bridge, the blood, the laughter, the mocking, the slurs, and they slam the door shut behind them.

They spend a few seconds catching their collective breath, and then Richie jokes, half-heartedly, “told you there was no right door.”

“You don’t have to be scared anymore, Richie,” Eddie tells him, ignoring the redirection, “Jesus, Richie… you never had to be scared of this. We all would’ve loved you still, had you told us. None of us would have hated you, or abandoned you. We still won’t.”

Looking distinctly uncomfortable, Richie clears his throat, and brushes off his knees, despite it doing very little for all the filth he’s covered in, and then shifts his weight from foot to foot.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Eddie scowls at him.

“Seriously, dude?”

“What?” Richie asks defensively, “What the fuck is that supposed to do for me? Make everything fine? That was fucking humiliating for me!”

Concern writ over his face, Eddie steps closer to Richie, and touches Richie’s upper arm, “you shouldn’t be humiliated, Richie. You were so young, and so brave, even though you felt alone. I’m sorry you carried that all by yourself for so long… maybe that’s not something that gets solved over the course of one terrifying, and deeply, deeply unsettling revisitation of childhood, but… God, Richie, I hope it helps, at least. Knowing that we’d all still love you, regardless -”

“Okay, yeah - I got it,” Richie rushes to say, turning to look away from the three doors, and partially turned away from Eddie, “We should make our way back -”

“Richie.”

With a deep sigh, Richie turns to face Eddie again, and stares expectantly.

Eddie steps forward, moving his hand up Richie’s arm, from his bicep, to his shoulder, and then he takes another step into Richie’s space, bringing them toe-to-toe.

Richie’s gazing down at him seriously, and Eddie likes it; he likes seeing Richie take him seriously, likes seeing Richie without all the smoke and mirrors of his constant joking. 

_ Wow, he’s tall_, Eddie thinks to himself, looking up at Richie through his eyelashes.

Instinctively, Eddie moves his hand from Richie’s shoulder, to his neck, and it’s strange to see the power he wields over someone he considers so invincible; Richie pulls in closer to him as though there’s a magnetic draw between them. He looks dazed, fixated, but focused on Eddie with dark eyes, and there’s all this _ want _ that, had Eddie known to look for it, maybe he’d have seen it decades ago. 

“You deserve love, Richie,” Eddie murmurs, thinking privately to himself that Richie has no right being so handsome while being so filthy, “And if it’s mine you want, you can have it.”

Richie’s eyes round out, and for a split second he seems terrified, but then Eddie adds, “I want you to have it. I always have,” and he kisses Richie.

He kisses Richie Tozier, right on his pretty, idiotic, trash mouth, and it’s like touching a live wire - every nerve ending in Eddie’s body comes alight, he slots into place like he’s always belonged there (and maybe he has), and he feels Richie gasp against him; a sound he logs away for later reflection.

Moving to press himself fully against Richie, Eddie grabs Richie’s hands, and puts them both on his waist, then loops his arms around Richie’s neck, dragging him closer, wanting - _ needing _ him _ so much closer_.

He can feel Richie’s hands shaking, and while the shaking doesn’t really stop, he does brave touching Eddie; he pets up and down Eddie’s flanks, giving him pleasant chills, and eventually spreading a blanket of heat over Eddie’s upper back with the broad stretch of his enormous hands.

It’s silly, maybe, Eddie thinks, but feeling Richie hold him so sweetly, so intimately, and sensing how cradled in Richie’s arms, and against his body, Eddie can be - it makes him feel safe.

_ How long have I loved him? _ Eddie ponders, but all his mind supplies is a visual memory of Richie, at eleven years old, riding on his bike, and laughing at something Eddie had said. 

Maybe that is answer enough.

Richie breaks the kiss first, having apparently forgotten to breathe.

Eddie grins at him, and observes, “you’re _ nervous_.”

“You’ve always made me nervous, Eds.”

“Yeah, but breathing?”

“Bold of you to assume I’ve ever breathed in your presence.”

Laughing, Eddie holds on more tightly, putting a hand in the wild curls at the back of Richie’s head.

“You know what you’ve always made me, Richie?”

Adam’s apple bobbing, Richie swallows, and shakes his head.

Eddie lets go of him, backs up a step, and lets Richie watch him take his wedding ring off.

It hits the ground with an uneventful _ tinking _ sound, hollow, and insignificant; a perfect commentary on his marriage as a whole.

He looks up into Richie’s expression of incredulity, and feels himself flush brightly.

“Brave.”

Richie’s eyes move from Eddie’s hands, back to his face, looking truly at a loss for words, and Eddie smiles more broadly at him, and repeats, “you make me brave, Richie.”

Richie moves his glasses in that nervous-tic way that Eddie has remembered how much he likes seeing, and he grabs at Richie’s hand, lacing their fingers together.

“Come on, Rich. Let’s go kill this fucking clown.”

“I mean - hiding here with you seems way more appealing, to be honest, now that I know kissing is on the table.”

Smirking, Eddie feels _ playful _for the first time… maybe in twenty-seven years. 

He tightens his hold on Richie’s hand, and teases, “if you help me murder this clown, and save this shit hole of a town that literally never deserved you, _ and _you take a shower when we get out - I’ll let you deflower me.”

Before he’s even finished the sentence, Eddie finds himself being hauled down the cave, back toward their friends, and the still-unfolding chaos.

He laughs, and hears Richie call back, “now, _ that’s _ music to my ears!”

“Can we get dinner first, or - ?”

“Eds, you’ve already convinced me - you don’t need to sell it this hard. A dinner date with Eddie Spaghetti, _ and _ sex? _ Yes_.”

“And, you’ll definitely still be this excited when I tell you I have nowhere to go when Myra takes the house the way I _ know _ she will?”

Stopping for a moment, Richie looks back at Eddie, smiling beautifully, and Eddie feels like he’s in that memory again - there is the Richie he once knew, his innocence, his humor, his youth, all that life thrumming beneath his skin. 

“If you’re asking to move to L.A with me, Eddie, then yes, I will be stoked beyond comprehension. Is that what you're asking?”

“Yes,” Eddie answers doubtlessly, his heart pounding in his chest. 

"Then move in with me, dumb ass."

"I love you, Richie."

Eyes going wide again, Richie seems to blush all the way up to his hairline, and Eddie could swear he can hear Richie's heart beating.

Then, ducking his head shyly for a second, Richie laughs, leans down, kisses Eddie’s lips sweetly, and tells him, “I love_ you_. I always have.”

“My poor, heartbroken mother must be rolling in her grave.”

Cackling like a maniac, Richie starts pulling Eddie along again.

“Eddie Kaspbrak, you’re my fucking soulmate.”

Grinning down at their linked hands, Eddie agrees, “yeah, I fucking am," and for the first time in his entire life, Eddie doesn't feel fear about the future.

He feels _thrilled_.


End file.
